Daily Prophet - 21 August 1993
British Ingenuity Uncovers Previously Hidden Chamber in Egyptian Pyramid!
By Rita Skeeter
We have received breaking news from our Egyptian colleagues about a new discovery from one of their multinational cursebreaking teams. A new series of chambers has been uncovered, which could yield exciting insights into the culture and lives of the ancient Egyptian magicians as well as valuable magical treasures.
Credited with this discovery is our very own Ronald Bilius Weasley, a soon to be third year at Hogwarts, who ingeniously figured out the method used to access the new chamber. In the process he disarmed the many dangerous traps inside and saved two poor siblings from Australia who had gotten trapped by a curse, before opening the chamber to the outside so that the cursebreakers could enter. One of the last remaining Sphinxes was also found under a time suppression ward, which will surely help conservation efforts for these noble creatures. Given these events, Ronald Weasley is great model of what every child should aspire to be!
This reporter, for one, finds it completely unsurprising that it was British ingenuity that was needed to find and access this newest chamber. This is only confirmed by the presence of another of our own, William Arthur Weasley, the lead cursebreaker of the team. Perhaps more multinational archeological partnerships would benefit from having a prestigious British wizard or witch leading the team. After all, who knows what would have happened to the poor Granger siblings without a brave British wizard to rescue them?
Pictured below is the entire Weasley family, who visited Egypt to see William after winning the Daily Prophet Grand Prize Galleon Draw, putting their youngest son in the right place to make this great discovery. If recent events are anything to go by, we expect great things from both Messrs. Weasley in the future.
To read more about other great British wizards who have showcased the valor of our nation abroad, please see page fifteen for our full report, including Christopher the Chopped, who first discovered the great underground cave networks used by ancient Amazon druids. He may have returned in pieces, but it was thanks to his ill-fated adventure that the Brazilian search and rescue teams first met the Amazonian druids, thus advancing worldwide knowledge of natural magic.
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Waves crashed on the jagged rocks while a man stood stood under a rocky outcropping on the shore, his grey eyes staring out over the black water at a small island in the distance. Azkaban. Even from this distance, Regulus could feel the dementor's chilling aura. The sun always shone dimly from behind the clouds, and even Muggles avoided this stretch of beach because of how uneasy it made them feel. However, if one was going to be breaking a brother out of Azkaban, this was probably the most perfect stretch of beach anyone had ever seen. It was remote enough that no one would be wandering by, but not so remote that he would draw unwanted attention. After all, dementors were strong and chaotic magical creatures and they were doing him quite the favor by distracting any prying magical eyes.
Kreacher had been helping him for weeks while they worked from his townhouse in London. Regulus had managed to gather all the ingredients needed to enable the magic that would break his brother out of Azkaban; all except the golden sap of a snowdrop harvested during a solar eclipse. He'd made the best substitution he could and was fairly certain it would work. Nevertheless both he and Kreacher had spent weeks charging the runes he'd inscribed on a glass talisman blown from the sands of time. It had cost him a fortune, but if everything went as planned, he would be able to speed up a small bubble of time surrounding himself so much that he'd be able to walk in and literally levitate his brother out in the blink of an eye. Hopefully, by the time anyone noticed, they'd be far away. Kreacher had already booked two airplane tickets to Majorca. He had moments when he wondered exactly how the house elf had managed to acquire the tickets, given how most muggles reacted to seeing the creatures, but decided that maybe he was better off not knowing. All that Regulus was waiting for now was for the sun to set. Uncertain of exactly how he would appear to others while he was displaced, he hoped that the twilight would mask his presence as a mere shadow flickering in the dying light. Besides, he was hungry, and he could use the delay to eat dinner while he waited.
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It was as if the world stood silent, the clouds frozen in the sky. The rain that had started to fall hung in front of him, unmoving. The waves on the shore stood like curved, icy mountains rising from the shore. Regulus thought back to how he must have appeared from the outside while he was suspended in time in Xibalba and shivered slightly before renewing his resolve and stepping forward. He wasn't sure how long he had before he returned to the normal flow of time, and it was better to be safe than sorry.
Regulus hesitantly stepped out onto the cold water. At the speed he was moving at, the ocean felt little different from the beach. It was tricky trying to navigate the waves near the shore, but he was soon running across the smooth surface of the water to Azkaban. His time-shifting talisman would not last forever, so every moment counted.
As he got closer, he noticed something peculiar - the ominous sensation that had been hanging over his head for weeks wasn't getting any worse. In fact, now that he was paying attention, it was completely gone. Huh. If he ever wrote a treatise on meddling with time via the use of runic arrays, he'd include the observation that dementors have no effect once the subject was sufficiently displaced in time. That was good news since, despite his practice over the last couple of months, he was still unable to cast a corporeal patronus. He could conjure a thin, white mist like most people, but it frustrated him that his efforts thus far had been otherwise fruitless.
Once he reached the shore of Azkaban he stopped to catch his breath and looked back towards his cave. The faint light of Kreacher disappearing was still faintly visible on the shoreline. He'd done a good job, then. Only a fraction of a second had passed in traditional time so far. Regulus shook his head humously. He wondered if he had broken the wizarding land speed record with his jaunt across the sea. He'd have to check his notes later. No one would ever know, but it would be very personally satisfying to add yet another secret legacy to the Ancient and Noble House of Black.
It was distinctly creepy to walk past the prison guards on the lower floors and then past the dementors on the higher floors. Even when they couldn't move the creatures were disturbing. Not knowing which cell his brother was in, Regulus started checking them all, one-by-one. He was worried when he reached the last of the cells without finding the one that contained his brother. Confused, he started searching more thoroughly. Bellatrix, a Lestrange, the other Lestrange, Mulciber, a Death Eater whose name he had forgotten, an empty cell, Travers...wait! Had that last cell really been empty? Regulus backtracked. There, in the corner of the otherwise empty cell, was a pile of matted, scrangy fur. He entered the cell cautiously until he remembered how fast he was going, then walked up and poked the furry pile. It was warm, so probably alive. Was it a dog? There was no reason to keep a dog in Azkaban, so that couldn't be right. Thinking quickly, Regulus cast the Homorphus Charm at the beast. Nothing happened. Hesitantly, Regulus touched the fur again, this time with the talisman he created, pulling the dog into his sped up bubble of time. Before his eyes, the dog started to grow and his fur shrink. Part way through the transformation, Regulus pulled the crystal back - the strain of shifting two beings through time was causing cracks to form on the surface. Besides, the dog-man was definitely Sirius. It looked vaguely like him, and besides, his brother was definitely idiotic enough to become an unlicensed animagus.
Regulus stunned his brother and then levitated him outside the cell, before setting him down and locking the cell back up again. With the escapee again floating behind him, he noticed the time sand crystal was starting to warm up considerably. He ran back through the prison, out to the shore line and running out onto the ocean again. He pushed his magic at the rapidly deteriorating talisman, desperately trying to hold it together through sheer force of will. He felt the faint vibration which signaled the edge of the wards as the talisman cracked in two and then starting dissolving into tiny grains of sand, its magic depleted. As the sounds of the world started to come alive around him, Regulus grabbed his brother who was already looking more and more human and pulled, air and water both whooshing around him as he apparated.
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Dear Jamie and Mia,
My mum told me I should write both of you to thank you for saving me since I didn't have the chance to talk to you again before you went home. Fred and George said you were both amazing - they were the twins who found us when we finally made it out, not that I remember them climbing up the pyramid to help us. They'd prank me into next week if I didn't write you. Don't tell them I said this, but I think they might have left me in the pyramid if it had been up to them.
As I'm sure you've heard, it was my fault that we got stuck down there. I'm really sorry I picked up that coin from the side chamber. Bill says I set off the anti-theft wards that got us into trouble in the first place. I got teleported into the torture chamber as the main thief, while you two were sent to a holding cell for accomplices because you were nearby when we tried to exit the pyramid. (Have I mentioned how cool it is that you got through all those traps by yourselves? Bill said we shouldn't have made it, but I think it's awesome. It makes me wish I could use my wand like you guys.) You didn't have to get me out of there, but I'm so glad you did! A few more minutes in that maze, and I'm not sure I would have made it. Bill says the monsters were all illusions, but they seemed real enough to me!
Anyway, thanks again for rescuing me and I'm sorry I was a jerk, especially to you, Jamie. Here in England, being a parselmouth is associated with the evil old Slytherin family, but my Dad said that magic is chaotic so sometimes it appears in muggle-born wizards and witches too. Maybe your children will also be parselmouths! If so, you should definitely move to England and show those Slytherins up!
Sorry again,
Ron
P.S The Daily Prophet, the British magical newspaper, printed an article about our adventure since the only reason we got to visit Egypt was because we won one of their prize draws. The article is kinda slanted in my favor, but if it's alright with you guys I'd like to enjoy the fame while I can. Fred and George have promised to play along with the prank as long as you give the okay. It is okay, right?
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Neville sighed as he flopped down on his bed. It was almost time for the new school year to begin. It wasn't a time Neville really looked forward to. Next year was probably going to be a lot like the last. His Gryffindor housemates weren't terribly fond of him, and there seemed to be a dedicated section of Gryffindor who were Slytherin haters and did their best to make his life miserable.
Yeah, sure, he sometimes hung out with Slytherins, but was that really so wrong? Since he started questioning the Gryffindor-Slytherin animosity after Terrence Higgs saved him in his first year, he couldn't really see a reason for the intense hatred between the two houses. A healthy rivalry was one thing, but this seemed to go far beyond that. The bias had become so ingrained that no one seemed to care about the reason. As far as Neville was concerned, that was a pretty poor excuse for ignoring the person who had saved his life from a troll, very nearly dying in the process.
His mutually beneficial acquaintance with Higgs had gotten him into a lot of trouble over the past couple of years. Higgs had explained to him that Neville shouldn't feel any obligation to the older boy, since Higgs had already gotten what he wanted out of saving him. When Neville had inquired, he found out that it turned out to be an open offer from Augusta Longbottom to join the Dark Force Defense league when Higgs graduated. Neville thought that was a load of tripe, and only admired the older boy more for making the best of a rotten situation. He had ended up spending some time every week around the older Slytherin, not quite a friend, but certainly tolerated.
He had been worried at first that the evil Slytherins would cause trouble for him, but Neville was a Gryffindor and wasn't going to let that stop him. As it turned out, a lot of the more 'evil' Slytherins left him alone since he was a pureblood like them. Much to his surprise, there was even a substantial portion of the house that had little to no interest in blood status. Their only concerns were with what you could do for them. It wasn't uncommon for the more intelligent members to occasionally work on a homework assignment for a housemate, or even assist one with a large project, provided that they received something in return. He felt like an explorer studying a foreign tribe from within, and learning the hidden complexities of how they actually worked.
To Neville's surprise, most of the resistance to him 'fraternizing with the enemy' came from his own house, whose gentle discouragement of the company he was keeping had slowly escalated into some of the older students shunning him entirely. By the end of the year, the Weasley twins had decided to make him the target of many of their pranks. A few times, he even found himself locked outside the common room at night. Ron and his other roommates did their best to help him protect his belongings, though there was only so much they could do about the older years. He thought about going to a professor, but that didn't seem like something a Gryffindor would do, and probably wouldn't do much good anyway.
During those times when he was locked out or had decided he'd rather be by himself than get pranked, he would occasionally run into a Ravenclaw girl named Luna. She was a year behind him, and seemed to be having similar troubles with her own house. Honestly, she was completely batty but was fun to listen to and, when he could actually get her to focus, really smart. They found themselves regularly spending a portion of their evenings chatting together in an abandoned classroom. Sometimes, they even studied together as they both seemed to have a shortage of friends. That only gave his housemates more teasing material regarding his 'girlfriend', but since they were going to tease him anyway, he didn't really mind.
It was something of a relief when the school year ended and he could return home. He enjoyed spending time with his remaining friends in Gryffindor without looking over his shoulder. He also found some time to spend with Luna and a couple of his Slytherin acquaintances, all of whom he learned a lot from. He was convinced Luna wasn't quite right in the head, but she was still great fun to hang out with and he had learned a little bit about how Slytherin political structure worked with her. He occasionally exchanged favors with the Slytherins, and had to admit that it was a bit of a rush trying to negotiate a good deal. Honestly, he was rubbish at it but still enjoyed the game. The Slytherins graciously put up with him, calling him 'practice'. The days when Luna was with him, though, were the most successful and enjoyable. She would occasionally say something completely crazy, yet plausible enough to throw any Slytherin off balance, enabling him to make some progress, and yet also fun enough for him to laugh with her about it afterwards.
Perhaps this year wouldn't be as bad. He had reinforced his remaining friendships in Gryffindor, while also developing some relationships with the other houses so that he'd have outside support as well. He wasn't sure how it would go, but he only had five more years until graduation. How bad could it get?
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Grey. He had forgotten the color of her hair, the brilliance of her eyes. The world was seeped in sepias and shades of hues past, never to be seen again. He deserved every moment.
Dingy. He couldn't get himself to care any more. All his clothes threadbare, his books tattered with no hope of repair or replacement. His pay simply collected in Gringotts, untouched.
Sere. He was surrounded by death - dried lacewing fly proboscis, withered nux myristica, embalmed sopophorous bean. When would it end? When would he be allowed to end it?
Ashen. He heard the word whispered behind his back. Not that he cared. He was the empty husk of what once was the vibrant young potions prodigy known as Severus Snape.
Leaden. He was heavy, so very heavy. Every day was like dragging himself through treacle-thick Polyjuice potion. Maybe, one day, he would finally cease to move.
Drab. He assiduously kept his teaching areas void of anything. After all, he was nothing now. Perhaps he'd eventually be able to keep his classroom devoid of students as well.
Cinereal. He glided into the doorway of his old potion lab, still smoking, over two moons later. Why was he still trying to reach Lily? Maybe he knew nothing else but his fruitless quest for absolution.
Silver. He had long since stopped fearing Azkaban; that boy was the only thing keeping him at Hogwarts. He owed Lucius enough to watch over him. Perhaps when the boy graduated, he'd leave too.
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A/N: Here's another bridging chapter for you all. We get to see Sirius and Regulus meet up again, see Ron be Ron, see Neville adjusting to a life that's a bit different that we might be used to, and Snape being sad and depressed. Really sad and depressed. He'll probably be fine, though. Someday. :)